The Effect of Blended Learning on the Persistence of Academic Performance for Computer Education

The Journal of Instructional Technologies &Teacher Education Vol.1 No1 (2012), 111-122 The Effect of Blended Learning on the Persistence of Academic Performance for Computer Education Cihad Demirli 1 Mustafa Aksoğan 2 Abstract Nowadays new learning processes are being designed where online education is reinforced and used along with face to face education. This co-use that was established to eliminate various limitations is called Blended Learning (BL). Blending could be considered as building a new process by combining the positive aspects of online and face to face processes levelly. In this study, we shared the research to determine the effect of the BL process on the persistence of the learners' academic performance. The research was conducted by the participation of 63 university students in Turkey to a 10-weeks implementation of a BL process designed by the researchers. The research showed that the effect of the BL process on the persistence of the academic performance is more pronounced than that of face to face learning process. Keywords: Blended learning, academic performance, persistence in education Özet Günümüzde yüzyüze eğitimi, çevrimiçi eğitim ile destekleyen yeni öğrenme yaklaşımları geliştirilmiştir. Çeşitli sınırlılıkları ortadan kaldırmak için kurulan bu ortak kullanım, Harmanlanmış Öğrenme (HÖ) olarak adlandırılır. Harmanlama çevrimiçi ve yüzyüze ortamların olumlu yönlerini birleştiren yeni bir yaklaşım olarak düşünülebilir. Bu çalışmada, Harmanlanmış Öğrenme yaklaşımının öğrencilerin akademik başarısındaki kalıcılığa etkisi incelenmiştir. Bu araştırma, 63 üniversite öğrencisinin katılımıyla, 10 haftalık bir sürede gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda Harmanlanmış Öğrenmenin akademik başarının kalıcılığı üzerine etkisinin yüzyüze öğrenmeden daha fazla olduğu belirlenmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Harmanlanmış öğrenme, akademik performans, kalıcılık 1 2 Yrd. Doç. Dr., İstanbul Ticaret Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü, İstanbul, Öğr.Gör., İnönü Üniversitesi, Akçadağ MYO, Malatya, 111 JITTE, Vol.1 No.1 (2012) C. Demirli & M. Aksoğan 1. Introduction The rapid changes in the Internet and the information technologies have directly affected the education as well as the production, service, and trade businesses and they changed the learning and management methods significantly. These technologies have supported the idea of using the online environments for educational purposes since they provide access to a huge amount of data, easy access to information and rich communication environments. The training environments have gained an enrichment and multidimensionality in terms of interactivity particularly through online technologies. The individuals at different locations were enabled to participate in the same educational process and also it was made possible to design the educational process in a substantially customized way by taking into account the individual differences such as the learning speed or style more thanks to the education provided independently from the physical environment. However, despite its lots of positive aspects, the significant limitations for performing some practice-intensive activities such as some laboratory and workshop activities (Rossett, 2002:60; Driscoll, 2002; Kaya, 2002:2; Usun, 2006:6-88; Gulbahar, 2009:2-202) started discussions about the limits of taking advantage of the mentioned technologies and established the basis for searching for new implementation models. At this juncture, it is possible to consider Blended Learning (BL), which is a model formed by combining the positive aspects of the online activities with that of the face to face environment of the courses, as an alternative approach (Horton, 2000; Young, 2002). In BL, the objective is to form a whole and therefore a stronger learning environment (Bielawski and Matcalf, 2003), which involves using multiple learning approaches and technologies along with the face to face environments (Zenger and Uehlein, 2001; Bersin, 2004; Wilson and Smilanich, 2005), directing the students to the individual learning (Garnham and Kaleta, 2002; Valiathan, 2002) and blending the online and face to face learning activities synchronously or asynchronously (Singh and Reed, 2001; Osguthorpe and Graham, 2003: 230). Moreover, it is aimed to offer environments that are customized for the individual, economical, updateable and that provide social interaction by taking advantage of the advanced information and communication technologies (Enjoo, 2006 cited in Usta, 2007: 42; Graham and Dziuban, 2003: 270-271; Wilson and Smilanich, 2005: 90; Unsal, 2007: 59-64). To this end, efforts are made to combine the strong points of the online and face to face environments in a balanced manner (Horton, 2000: 62; Graham, 2006: 7) and to use the existing facilities and technologies together in order to achieve the educational objectives (Orey, 2002). In this way, it could be said that BL provides significant benefits for the students, teachers and institutions (Kerfeld, 2002; Esfandiari, 2005; Posner, 2005). However, at this juncture the necessity of establishing the strategies and activities in accordance with the objective and content analyses, evaluating the compliance of the related institution, preparing the technical and technological 112 JITTE, Vol.1 No.1 (2012) The Effect of Blended Learning on the Persistence of Academic Performance … infrastructure for the implementations and knowing the ethical aspects of the process becomes evident (Khan, 2005: 23-379). Therefore it is observed that the dependent or independent factors regarding BL are taken into account during the education design process and that the process is dealt with using a program development approach (Wilson and Smilanich, 2005: 17-18). In this sense the studies performed for evaluating the effects are important. Hence it is necessary to evaluate the effects of all those efforts in different dimensions. This study focuses on determining the effect of a BL implementation, which was designed and executed in accordance with the literature, on the persistence of the learners' academic performance. We think that the results of this study presents significant results in terms of determining the short and medium term benefits of BL implementations on the individuals' academic development. 2. Method 2.1. Aim of the Study The general aim of the study is to determine the effect of the Blended Learning process on the persistence of the learners' academic performance. 2.2. Research Model The study was designed in an experimental pattern. The pre-test, post-test and retest model with a control group was implemented for this. All tests the experimental and control groups were at the same time. 2.3. The Study Group and Procedure The study was conducted through the participation of 63 learners that were attending to the Computer Programming department at the Vocational School of Higher Education in a university in Turke (...truncated)